Grain and grass is a country's strategic material, a necessity for the people's survival, and the lifeblood of a country's development. Sufficient food and grass reserves are like a powerful shot in the arm, so that people will not lose confidence in the country at any time.
At the same time, food is also one of the important economic sources of a country's development, and the development of many industrial products is inseparable from the support of grain and grass, so sufficient food and grass is also of ineffable importance to a country's development.
As we all know, the mainland has been a big agricultural country since ancient times, and the land is large and bountiful, so that the mainland has sufficient grain and grass reserves. However, even large agricultural countries such as the mainland were in dire straits, and soon after the founding of New China, the mainland experienced some major changes.
During this period, the mainland was still in a state of ruins, and due to the impact of war and other aspects, the mainland's agriculture has been in a state of abandonment. At this time, the Soviet Union, as a friendly neighbor of the mainland, proposed to lend the mainland millions of tons of grain to solve the mainland's urgent needs. But this transaction, because the translation mistranslated a word, resulting in failure.
From friendly neighbors to non-communication
As we all know, the relationship between the continent and the Soviet Union has always been a very complex existence. Initially, under the influence of the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, a group of patriots led by Li Dazhao also put forward the idea of socialism on the mainland, and the May Fourth Revolution broke out from this. At that time, the Communist International, led by Lenin, played a pivotal role in the founding of our Party and has maintained friendly relations.
After the founding of New China, the mainland has always regarded the Soviet Union as our big brother, and the Soviet Union has always supported us in many economic and other aspects, which has played a great role in promoting the recovery of the mainland's economy.
With Stalin's ouster and Khrushchev's reign, relations between the mainland and the Soviet Union took a sharp turn for the worse.
The newly appointed Khrushchev hated Stalin very much and regarded everything Stalin did as a thorn in his side. And when Stalin was in power, the final thing was the relationship between China and the Soviet Union, and Khrushchev, who did not deal with Stalin, naturally became hostile to China, which eventually caused a rupture in Sino-Soviet relations.
The period after the break between the two sides was one of the most difficult on the mainland. During this period, the mainland was first hit by natural disasters, domestic food production continued to decline, and the economy also fell rapidly. It was during this difficult period that the former big brother Soviet Union extended a "helping hand" to the mainland.
A helping hand
At that time, the Soviet Union was in the Cold War period with the United States, and under such a long period of attrition, the Soviet Union naturally needed a friendly helper to make its own better development.
For the Soviet Union at that time, China was precisely the best ally, both in geographical location and strength, China had a unique geographical advantage.
So in 1961, the Soviet Union revealed that it wanted to cooperate with the mainland in many aspects such as economy and technology. In February of the same year, Khrushchev revealed that he was willing to lend the mainland one million tons of grain and 500,000 tons of cane sugar to help China tide over the current crisis.
But things are not as simple as they seem, and after simple consideration, the mainland offered to receive aid for 500,000 cane sugar, but refused 1 million grain aid. He also told the Soviet Union that the mainland hoped to rely on its own efforts to solve the problem first, and if it really did not work in the end, then seek help from the Soviet Union.
At that time, the mainland was not willing to refuse Soviet aid, and it all stemmed from a misunderstanding. In Khrushchev's letter to China there is a "B" character, which means borrow in Russian, but the translator translated the letter by relying on his own understanding to translate this character into loan. Although there is only one word difference between loan and borrowing, the meaning expressed is thousands of miles.
When the leaders of the mainland got the letter translated by the translator, they felt that if it was a loan, with China's national conditions and people's strength at that time, they would not be able to repay such a large loan. Therefore, after many discussions, it was decided to accept only the cane sugar that the Soviet Union supported us and give up grain.
The importance of translation
This farce was not discovered until the mainland went to the Soviet Union to discuss the sugar cane matter, when Zhou Huamin, then vice minister in charge of foreign trade, felt that something was wrong during the negotiations, so he immediately called his superiors after the negotiations to report his findings.
After receiving the news, the Prime Minister's secretary also hurriedly called the translation team to verify the information. Upon verification, it was found that this was indeed caused by the carelessness of the translation team.
Although the translation team regretted this incident very much, all this was no longer helpful. Compared with the Soviet Union's grain savings, borrowing grain from the international market could also alleviate the food crisis for a period of time, but this also made the mainland's economic burden heavier, and more importantly, the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union did not improve greater.
This shows the importance of translation work. If you can translate accurately, you will reduce a lot of unnecessary troubles in your work. However, if the translated words do not reach the meaning, then it is likely to be completely different from the actual meaning, causing many irreversible losses.
In fact, translation work is sometimes a boring job, and translators have to face a lot of text every day. A day or two is fine, but over time it can cause exhaustion. As I became physically and mentally exhausted, I gradually became careless in my work.
Many translations rely on their first feelings, without thinking about whether there is any other meaning in it, so that many translations are prone to errors, which eventually leads to disaster.
In fact, translation work should not be regarded as a boring job, but learn to discover the joy of it. While translating an essay, you will gain a deeper understanding of the culture of the country and see the wider world.
When you think about it again and again, and finally figure out the meaning that belongs to it the most, you will feel a sense of glory that you have never felt before. If the Soviet letter had been translated correctly, it would have reduced a lot of unnecessary trouble on the mainland.
Brief summary:
Although the deterioration of relations between the mainland and the Soviet Union at that time was an inevitable step of the development of the times. But translation errors also played a role in this, and these translation errors caused a lot of unnecessary losses to the mainland.
At that time, the translation error was, on the one hand, because the education in the mainland was still relatively backward at that time, and a lot of knowledge could only be exposed to some one-sidedness, but could not be deeply studied. However, with the development of the times, the mainland's education system is becoming more perfect, so our translation of foreign languages can no longer only look at its surface, but also go deep into it to find its own meaning. Translation is a bridge between people and countries.